The Art of Being a Brilliant Classroom Assistant by Gary Toward

Author:Gary Toward [Gary Toward, Chris Henley and Andy Cope]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785830587
Publisher: Crown House Publishing
Published: 2016-04-06T04:00:00+00:00

So, which of the two is the cleverest? Gardner’s rather neat answer is both of them. He asserts that there are at least seven intelligences, only two of which – verbal and mathematical – are academic. Into the mix he tossed spatial (as in artists or architects), kinaesthetic (as in sport), musical (as in Mozart and Elvis) and a couple of ‘personal intelligences’ – interpersonal and intrapersonal. It is the combination of these so-called ‘multiple intelligences’ that makes up our all-round cleverness. Gardner, to his credit, said this was the starting point and that there was no magic number – later getting a bit too clever and stretching to a bewildering twenty intelligences.

But it’s these last two personal intelligences that are of particular interest for this book. Gardner summarises them as follows: ‘Interpersonal intelligence is the ability to understand other people: what motivates them, how they work, how to work cooperatively with them.’ Or, stated in a slightly different way, ‘Capacities to discern and respond appropriately to the moods, temperaments, motivations and desires of other people.’7

Intrapersonal intelligence is subtly but importantly different and is defined as ‘a correlative ability, turned inward. It is a capacity to form an accurate model of oneself and to be able to use that model to operate effectively in life.’ Or, with a slightly different spin, ‘access to one’s own feelings and the ability to discriminate among them and draw upon them to guide behaviour’.8

In essence, we think you need to hone your interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence in order to create a strong relationship with your learners. Plus, if you begin to think of intelligence as something much more than ‘intellect’, you will begin to recognise that you are assisting in bringing out a whole mixture of spatial, musical, sporting and social skills.

Think of it this way: everyone in school, whatever their role, is a teacher of literacy. The most common teaching method for spelling over the last two or three decades has been the look, cover, write, check method. But it doesn’t work for everyone. Gary remembers one intelligent girl who had passed through the system up until Year 6 labelled a poor speller. She was great at art, though, and could model stuff and make things with ease. Gary gave her some modelling clay and taught her how to make letters and then move them into the positions to form words. He made a set of card letters out of cereal packets and gave them, with sticky tack, to her mother and showed her how to get her daughter to make words by moving the letters. He encouraged the girl to draw the words in her yard in the chalk he gave her and to paint them with water on hot days. It switched her on. She’s now got a degree and is teaching English.

So, one of the things you must do is to consider how you help your learners. Are they better served by stomping and chanting those key words? Could they

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